College team shares expertise with national audiences

With a decade of experience using technology to work remotely across our ten centres and bringing learning directly into communities and schools, West Highland College UHI was delighted to help recently when approached by two national organisations to share good practice.

College Development Network and JISC recently asked all colleges for any case studies they had of how students had engaged with learning in online classrooms.

Katy MacDonald had already commented several times in College Forum gatherings that her students from the Supported Learning group were thriving as a result of this new method of learning. So Katy helped produce an article that featured in CDN’s Reach Magazine and was then invited to talk to an online conference.

Her really insightful talk about just how well her supported learning students have embraced the online-classroom is available to Watch on one of the Virtual Bridge sessions here.

Separately, Education Scotland invited us to attend another of the College Development Network Virtual Bridge sessions to explain how we encourage engagement with learners in a remote and geographically dispersed area. This was to share with the audience how our approach to teaching, learning and supporting students in online-classrooms had developed over our 10 years of teaching.

Fiona Grant and Lesley Hawkins presented on behalf of the college and explained approaches. It included our Virtual Schools programme of delivery with our partners from North Highland and Inverness Colleges across 29 Highland High Schools. This presentation included engagement snippets and tips from teaching staff and the student association HISA Voice Manager – it’s well worth a watch and is available on one of the Virtual Bridge sessions here.